My brother just recently bought this computer (FX7026 gateway) six months ago, and has primarily used the computer for gaming. Not much was on it other than online games. The problem he has is that it won't get passed the start-up. One of two circumstances occur: the windows start up bar keeps moving from left to right forever, or the start up bar disappears and the screen stays black for hours. I've tried start up in safety mode, debugging mode, and pretty much every other means of starting it up, but the same problem occurs. He took it to Best Buy's Geeksquad and they said it's probably a problem in the motherboard, but they're not possitive. I tried switching video cards with our other computer, blowing a fan in the computer to make sure it wasn't an overheating issue (although i doubted that'd work in the first place), and i got nothing. I was just wondering about how valid the proffesionals' assumptions were. Also (as you can probably tell, i'm not great with computers), I was wondering if it would be a good idea switching motherboards with my hp pavilion 061 to test if it would work. Can I do that? Will it be compatible?

Generaly motherboards by OEM's (Dell HP ect) are non standard sizes/fittings/connectors so you will be unable to mix and match to test it. Also windows wont like being installed on one then booted on another that will cause even more problems.

What you want to be doing is downloading a "Live CD"..... a live CD is essentially a whole operating system that runs off the CD drive...thereby bypassing the windows install and letting you test if its the hardware that's faulty or just windows itself if you get my meaning. So download one of the following and burn it to the CD (I assume you know how to burn an iso) then start the computer up off it which will rule out the motherboard as a hardware issue.

http://www.slax.org/
Full Linux operating system

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
Purely a diagnosis CD if you feel comfortable this will probably be the most useful as it has various tools to test hardware and recover files ect

http://h33t.com/details.php?id=3a817c654a32c8e7ebe0451b73f3cee8b900175c
Here's a windows vista live CD I stumbled across a few days ago haven't tried it myself yet but being non techy it might be better for you to download and boot with this so your familiar

Geek Squad....well id forget it your more likely to figure it our with google and a bit of your own tinkering than they are unless you strike gold and find someone who knows what they are doing. These people are interested in making money remember as a business model not helping out of kindness, I'm willing to bet they simply wanted to sell your a new motherboard and reinstall windows as a result totally wiping off any under lying issue rather than fixing it.

If the Live CD boots fine then it is a software issue with windows making it cheap(if not free) to fix with a little know how...... but that's where there becomes a million possibilities id post back with how the live CD goes first before we discuss that - Id imagine though if you cant boot to safe mode; a recovery console chkdsk and then possible a repair of windows would be the next step for yourself.

I had originally wanted to burn a new OS and try that but my brother insisted on taking it in to a "professional" " title=">">. Anyway, I burned the windows vista live CD you suggested and put it into the computer. The cd drive was sounding and a bar came up that said "windows is loading files. . . ." After the bar finished from left to right, it took me to the same startup screen (with the smaller green bar moving left to right) and then it went to the same black screen afterwards (where it remained black for hours). Now I assumed it would run the disk automatically, is that correct? Am i missing a step, or does this mean my motherboard is toast?
By the way, thanks for the help.

[Edited by Moderator: Removed reference to spam post above that has since been deleted.]

As for the result I don't think its loading correctly and then just carrying on to boot from the HDD....... Try physically unplugging the HDD for me inside the tower to make sure it doesn't use it and only boots of the CD......

If that also hangs try downloading SLAX and try to get that to boot just as a 2nd point of reference to make sure but that'd indicate a hardware failure.

Also i'm not trying to tread on your toes but i'm assuming you burned the ISO correctly; as in you put it in a CD drive and it will show you many folders ect (the contents of the ISO) when opened not just the single xxx.iso file on the disk....

Yep, I burned the ISO properly. I unplugged my HDD and it was interferring with the live cd ^.^ So.. I got to the desktop screen. Now what? Do I have a hard drive issue? Should I plug the hard drive back in and install the OS onto it? For the computer i'm using now, I burned an OS to a disk and it was all self explanitory for the set up from there, but I'm confused with this live cd. Sorry for jumping to different conclusions before your input. I'm eager to gloat in my brother's face

Well that's good news eh ^.^ aslong as that's running ok it rules out any hardware damage (excluding the HDD) meaning a new motherboard would have been a pointless pursuit.

Next on the todo list.....I'm assuming your using windows XP Pro let me know otherwise as following steps can be different...

It also depends on are you planning to troubleshoot the issue via command line and recovery console or are you happy just repairing windows (looses a few settings here and there but all your files stay intact and in place) or do you want to back up files and wipe everything and install XP from scratch again?

Either way if you plug the HDD back in and get it to boot of the CD drive eventually you'll get to a blue screen after its loaded some files ect somthing along the lines of
1 do you want to set-up windows now
2 do you want to repair windows with the recovery console
3 Exit F3

If you want to do the recovery console way use option 2....
To repair or reinstall from scratch its option 1....
When you go into it it will realise windows is already installed and will ask you do you want to repair it with "R" which will take about 30 minutes or so basically reinstalls the OS over the top and keeps everything where it is....
Or you can format the partition (which wipes everything inc your files) and reinstalls the OS nice and clean and new

Hmm, i'm kind of confused as to how to do this step. The live cd i got is for windows vista, and the computer originally ran off of windows vista. I searched around and the start up runs off of a program called shell swapper (i believe). There's an option to reboot, so i plugged the HDD back in and rebooted, but it went to the frozen black screen. There's also an HDD scan that i can do from the start menu.. if that'll tell me anything =P

lol sorry....I was refering to you now using the windows xp install CD not the live CD.

Ditch the live CD its no longer needed and boot from the vista install CD....follow the prompts it should be relatively easy to get it to attempt to repair windows.

Oh, ok. I tried that before taking it in to geek squad. But I just tried installing again. I can get a few steps into the process, but the installation always ends up freezing at some point. Failed about 40 times =P

Where about's does it hang on setup when copying files or installing ect??
Does it give you an error?
And are you formatting the disk before installing or just installing over the top?
The disk you are using is it a full Vista disk / Pirated / OEM disk that came with your PC?

If you can try downloading that Ultimate Boot CD and booting from it.
Look for a program called "windows memory test" or "memtest86+" and run it for about 30 minutes see if all the tests pass ok or does it fail. Also on there is NTFS4DOS or something similar run it and when it gives you the command prompt try "chkdsk /f" and try the vista CD again after that.
Also if you have another OS to hand such as XP try installing that I had looked at a PC once with a stick of dud memory would run XP fine but would throw a hissy fit at Vista...

There's about a million other things id suggest now like swapping the PATA cables and trying a different HDD but I doubt you want to go that far..... With the installer crashing though it makes things a little complicated as there's a lot of things that could cause it without being there its difficult to trouble shoot it effectively, so it may be an idea for you to find a friend of a friend's geek friend who could take a look.

PS Chkdsk /F can be very destructive to data so I don't recommend it if you have anything on there you not happy to loose.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/